Tuesday, September 17, 2013

Time, Quiet, Please, Unending

I have always hated the passage of time. Many writers feel that way. Shakespeare:And Summer's lease hath all too short a date. If I allow myself, at the late hours of the day, to consider the passage of time, I get sad. But I cheer myself by saying, "And then there's Maudlin." Bea Arthur would approve. I've felt this way since I was six years old. I remember asking my brother, me sitting in a pile of grass clippings and him sitting on a pile of dumped dirt and stone on the edge of a stream, "Remember the good ol' days?"

This just in from The New York Times.http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/09/16/to-help-a-shy-child-listen/?ref=todayspaper
I was a shy child. This may sound uncanny, that is to say, without cans...but it is true. I come from a large clan of shy Irish people who come out of their shells later in life. It's just genetic. Or has something to do with marrying out of the lineage, bolstering up the fortitude in the next generation. I believe shyness makes sense. We are most ourselves when we are alone. Being with others requires adjustments. These adjustments can and do remove us from who we are, really. Isn't it not a strange thing to not be oneself? Shyness may be a higher calling, a need to be true to one's original being.

Sweetness is the best part of life. Better than triumph. Better than all ambition. There has been a destruction of sweetness, lately. It's so silly. Everyone, rich and poor, feels best when butterflies fly freely, land on a bush, easily, and then continue on their way. It's effortless. I am not being sappy as much as I am being simple.

Goats have seven sets of teeth. After the seventh set falls out, they die.